Change in Seasons

Daytime temperatures are still in the 80s (a welcome change from the 100+ temperatures of this summer) but the nighttime temperatures have started to drop to the 40s. It is cold enough when I get up in the morning to necessitate sweats as opposed to the shorts and tank tops I wore all summer.

Last year a friend and I tried an experiment where I took several of her potted tomato plants when the temperatures started to drop at night. Those I put in the greenhouse didn’t fare well when it started to freeze overnight but those I put in the sun room where I work did very well. Today, she dropped off four tomato plants, all bearing fruit, and one beautiful geranium (the summer temperatures were not kind to my geraniums and most didn’t survive so I was very happy to get another one for the winter.)

I also moved the two blueberry bushes (in pots) to the greenhouse and brought the two lemon trees, also potted, in for the winter.

I’ve been collecting seeds from various “wild” plants on my property as well as seeds from one of my desert willows and will plant those in the pollinator garden in November. I’ve been collecting the seed heads from my sunflowers so I can provide those throughout the winter for the birds.

I haven’t seen a hummingbird in almost a week now so today I brought in the feeders and cleaned them for storage over the winter.

Pollinator Garden

Last summer I had the front area cleared of weeds and graveled in preparation for putting in raised beds. Two raised beds were installed using concrete blocks and the railroad ties that had been installed by the previous owners were moved. A friend of mine provided me with two very small desert willow trees – one was about 8 inches and the other even smaller. Since I intend to keep these trimmed back to bush size, I planted both in the same area. For right now, I put a solar fountain / bird bath between the two. Obviously that will move once the trees are larger. I was amazed at how fast these have grown and even more surprised when the largest (now between 2 and 3 feet) bloomed last week.

I only wish the rest of the plants I’ve put in were as successful. In the meantime, since I don’t have enough blooms to keep the hummingbirds fed, I have four feeders up and am feeding the hummingbirds about 12 cups of nectar every day. I am seeing more butterflies this year than in past years but have not seen a lot of bees (or wasps).

So Long Summer. . .

I got a weather alert on my phone over the weekend alerting me to the weather front moving in earlier this week. According to the alert, temperatures were going to drop below freezing for the first time this week. I rearranged the breakfast room to make room for the geraniums and moved the geraniums off the deck back into the house for the winter. I also had one pepper plant that still had small peppers so I dug that out of the earth box and replanted in a pot and moved that into the breakfast room, hoping I would get a few more peppers. I will replant the garden tower inside at the end of the month.

Six of the 14 geraniums

I had propane delivered last week and will likely get the furnace up and running this coming weekend. Unless we have a reversal back to warmer weather it is time to turn on the heat as it was 51 degrees inside when I got up this morning.

And possibly big news coming . . . . stay posted.

Not an auspicious beginning

I had been gradually moving the geraniums out of the sunroom and onto the deck, hoping that there would not be another freeze. Instead of a freeze, yesterday afternoon I got hail.

On a more positive note, the geraniums had done very well indoors over the winter. Well enough that there wasn’t enough room to squeeze behind the table that I work on to keep the geraniums trimmed back and I wasn’t able to water on a regular basis.

Last spring, when things were really depressing, I did something I never do – bought some plants at the grocery store. The grocery store had some blooming Kalanchoe in different colors and I splurged and bought one of each color (four in total). After I brought them home and did some research, it appeared that once the blooms died off, to get the plants to bloom again would require moving to a dark closet. What happened was that after I moved the geraniums inside, the Kalanchoe got relegated to either under the cinderblock / plank shelf I used for the geraniums or squeezed between geraniums on the shelf. When I ran out of room, I placed the last one on the corner of the table. It was the only one that received regular watering (every other week or so) through the winter. Once I had moved the geraniums outside, I discovered that three out of the four Kalanchoe had bloomed. The two under the shelves have a lot of blossoms, the one squeezed between the geraniums has a single bloom and the one on the corner of the table has none. Evidently, little to no water and limited sun is enough to force blooms.

I also promised myself some hanging plants this spring. I planted some zinnia seeds in some “window” planters that I set on the railing inside the gazebo and I now have a lot of geraniums – some still blooming – on the lower deck at the edges of the gazebo to limit the sun (last year on the upper deck in full sun was too much for most of the geraniums). This year is supposed to be extremely dry and I didn’t even bother with planting a garden, but hopefully I’ll have one little corner of blooms to provide cheer.

Summer

Temperatures have steadily risen in the past years and the monsoons have started later – and generally with less moisture. My garden this year, again, could not handle the long stretches of over 100 degree temperatures. I had moved the few remaining plants out of the garden and into containers on my deck several weeks ago. To date, I have harvested two squash – one a zucchini

and one a yellow crookneck.

I am hoping that I will get a few more squash but have given up on the eggplant and tomatoes. In other words, another expensive failure. I will plant a fall garden in the next couple of weeks, but am not holding out a lot of hope.

The only things growing with abandon are the weeds. I have spent incalculable hours pulling weeds from the driveway. Now that the sheep are gone, the kochia is once again abundant. I was out the other morning trying to make (yet another) path through the kochia around the house. Bug was anxious to help. By the time I managed to get the camera on the phone working, she had foregone her efforts to pull out the weed using her mouth and had started trying to dig it out.

Hard to believe but she is almost 8 months old.

Spring

This post was supposed to go up yesterday . . . oops

I work out of the house normally so am accustomed to being home and away from people 98% of the time. However, now that almost everything has been shut down (schools, restaurants, etc.) I am having an overwhelming urge to leave home and go do something in town.

The weather has been alternating between storms and sun and the winds have been fairly steady.

Spring is definitely coming though – blossoms on the apple tree.

And I finally got part of the garden planted (though a lot of seeds probably ended up in areas I didn’t intend to plant.)

So much to vent but I promised myself this blog would stay away from politics . . . stay safe everyone.

If we were in England . . .

we would be celebrating Guy Fawkes day. However, here in the U.S. I’m celebrating my birthday.

My garden tower in the breakfast room (or as I call it, my home office) is flourishing. I’ve been making pesto from the basil and parsley to go along with the spaghetti squash from my garden and I should have enough lettuce for a couple of salads a week through the winter shortly.

Morning of 11/05/18

The weather was gorgeous today so I snuck away just before noon and Fix and I took a short hike in the Quebradas (about a tenth of a mile south of my gate.)

Last of the desert flowers

Fix perched on edge of Arroyo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had some rain a couple of weeks ago and the vegetation took advantage of the water and warmer temperatures.

I avoid the Quebradas when it rains because of the potential for flash flooding (the hikes are on the bottoms of arroyos) but it is nice to know that Fix could save himself if needed.

The cottonwoods are finally starting to change color. It won’t be long now before all the leaves are gone.

Heading Home

 

Tuesday Takes

Oddly I have a plant that is producing two different colored spaghetti squash – one started as a green stripe and the other as a light cream. I have been checking daily to see if any were mature enough to cut off the vine and today the rind of the green one finally seemed hard enough. I’ve never seen a spaghetti squash this color before so it will be interesting to see what it tastes like.

Three of the chicks are still alive and growing rapidly. It looks like one is a Delaware cross (the rooster is a mix) and the other two look like Australorp crosses.

Sunday Snaps

The squash is doing well and after several days of only male blossoms, I finally started getting some female blossoms. I currently have three squash developing.

Spaghetti Squash

 

 

 

 

In ten summers I have yet to actually eat a single apple . . . this year looks to be no exception as I can’t reach the apples that the squirrels and birds have left.

Apples

 

 

 

Finally, not all UV protection is equal. I put a “farm” tarp from Harbor Freight on the sheep shelter last October. I replaced the billboard covers I had on the goat shelters a couple of months ago because I wasn’t able to secure them during the high winds. I used tarps from the local True Value which were (allegedly) UV protected. I removed the shreds of both tarps a few days ago and replaced them with “farm” tarps from Harbor Freight this morning. The tarp on the sheep shelter looks almost new.

 

 

Sunday Snap

I first posted a photo of the spaghetti squash on June 3. This photo was actually taken yesterday, on June 30, so just shy of a month later.

Actually I’m sort of surprised . . . temperatures have been soaring in the last few weeks with more days breaking 100 degrees than I would normally expect. Even with a shade cloth over the garden, many of the plants have been showing signs of heat stress.

I’m being optimistic that this garden, originally designed to work in drought-stricken areas of Africa, may be the solution to my gardening woes. The hardware cloth is keeping the moles and gophers from eating the roots, the raised bed is keeping the rabbits out and the center compost tube appears to be providing sufficient fertilizer. I’ve started watering through the compost tube so that the plants are being watered from the roots as opposed to the top and that has cut the amount of water necessary considerably.